Reclaiming Afrikan QUEER PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL AND GENDER IDENTITIES CURATED BY ZETHU MATEBENIReclaiming Afrikan: queer perspectives on sexual and gender identities is a collaboration and collection of art, photography and critical essays interrogating the meanings and everyday practices of queer life in Africa ee Ae Mana nue eee ne geno Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya and South Africa offer fresh perspectives Oe antec aiken Me eee eA ESR of reclaiming identities in the continent. Africa is known to be harsh towards oe Mumm fe a eee eke te Cate a) this framework that Reclaiming Afrikan exists to respond to such violations and to offer alternative ways of thinking and being in the continent. The Dee nA Eee eee a identities that are ordinarily Reem y prejudice and hatred. The ee eee Se Pee stem ening Pierecroneiae hue ee cockney ee eet an Sora tn cS Eats aar ence Prete enue teas pitas Ue kom Cee nan PRS me Mete ec) See ae eek og Reena De op aemar mt Pe emen ete oor) Deere cae ete Ee ne teri) Brennen i) iMSPAN Perec) Mme gs 6 ublication was made possible by Hivos his Iranti-org project is funded by Arcus Foundation Publication © Modjali Books 2014 First published by Modjall Books Pty Ltd PO Box 385, Athlone, 7760, South Attica modjal.books@ar odjalibooks.c 4 ISBN 978-1-920: = (: m Language editor: Karen Jennings nob yy Design and layout: Louise Topping poON Front cover image by Pereira Back cover image by Kolebogile NtlaciCONTENTS Foreword Preface Thebeautifulonesarehere Introduction The Revolutionist Resurrecting and Celebrating Area Scatter, a cross-dresser who. transgressed gender norms in Eastern Nigeria Negotiating Homosexual In/visibility Performing Queer “In Time and Space”: a “politics of the event” The Transgressive Visions of Jabulani Chen Pereira In Time and Space How NOF to write about queer South Africa Queering Queer Africa Negotiating Personhood - what it's like being transgender in South Africa Contributing Authors and ArtistsFOREWORD essays and images have asked me to write this foreword. Reclaiming Afrikan forcefuly intervenes in several significant debates. First, it joins essential books, such as African Sexualties edited by Sy Tamale, Queer African Reader edited by Sokari Ekine and Hakima Abbas, and Queer Africa compiled and edited by Karen Martin and Makhosazana Xat exposing the hideous myth that queer sex is anti Alrican. Like those books, Reclaiming Afrikan acts as a rallying cry against the rapidly-spreacing, Vicious homophobia marching across the Afric continent. More than ever, we need these kinds organising tools that help us strike back at attemy to isolate queer, sexual and gender non-conforming ‘Africans from each other and larger cornmunit This is a terrifying isolation that leads to ving in deeply-buried closets, fight into exile and, even torture and death. This cutting-edgs oft language and historical examples that we all can to counter this march of homophobia Reclaiming Afrikan also speaks to international debates about queer behaviours around the world By selectively engaging westem theorists, such a Jucith Butler and Eve Kosoisky Sedgwick, and African scholars, such as Binyavanga Wainai and Keguro Macharla, several articles help create dialogues that will enrich us all. This engagement also makes it clear that African homophobia fsn't some uniquely African condition, AsaBlack American, lamparticularly appreciative Of the ways Reclaiming Afrixan speaks to debates throughout the African diaspora. 'm net talking here about diaspora ties that go back to the slave trade and mysteriously bind us all together. Rather | am concerned about what we face t ow: the present day racists, sexists and homophobes who have tried to stir up homophobia both in Africa and the Americas. It has been well-established that US. right-wing Christian groups have helped mobilise politicians in countries such as Uganda and Nigeria to croate legislation targeting sexual and non-gender Conforming ctizens. The coalitions between these |= honoured that the editors of this bold set of of gether n conservative po tern-based Chvistian groups who come with money to distribute have helped divert attention from more critical issues like Poverty, sexism, and corruption, ight-wing Christian groups have icians and w used the same tactics among black Americans. For exam se gtoups have help th fund conservative black pre Rev. Wiliam Owens and his Coalition of African-American Pastors (Madhani, pag). The Christian Right has had mixed suc in Black communities largely because Black Americans can see through their homophobia to their deep-rooted racism. Owens, for example, has failed to emerge as a credible leader But the right-wingers continue to try. infamous Scott Lively, who has exported homophobia around the world, most notoriously to Uganda, has recently moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, Never a man to shun the imaight, he is recruiting followers from the large Black and Latino communities with platforms designed "lo restore respect for marriage and the natural family”. His attack on Obama as a “radical homosexuatst” reveals that he is working in the service of the right-wing anti-Obama forces (The Griot n.pagy Reclaiming Atnkan is an ingenious collection of a activism, and scholarship. While there is much to worry about in facing nersasnaly vocal homophobia, this room for optimism: content will eave you able to imagine a worid in which we no longer have to struggle to protect ‘queer, sexual and gender non-conforming Afrika, Professor E Frances White Gallatin School of Individualized Study and Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University REFERENCES Madhani, Aamer. "Black p conservative ties, records sho: October 2012, Web. 10 April 2014. theGriot.com 2 Apr 2014. 0 April 2014,Self Portraits: Dragonfly City Acrylic. on Canvas, (150 x 100 cm) 2010 This is Dragonfly City in a country called ‘Androgynous. Some kind of freakish, awesome, perilous state to be. Milumbe HaimbeTyna AdebowalePREFACE last few yearshavebeen deeply challenging | for sexual and gender non-conforming persons in Africa. Various laws, legisiations, traditional and religious fundamentalism have been strengthened in order to police and regulate non- normative sexualities and gender identities. Colonial laws introduced penal codes, commonly known as ‘sodomy laws that criminalised so-called “unnatural” sexual acts. We have seen how these laws continue to exist in postcolonial times - having been upheld and promoted most recently in the early 1990s by the Zimbabwean president's anti-homophobic outbreaks, tricking to neighbouring countries and to the Eastern and Western horns of the continent. In some countries (current examples include Uganda, Gambia and Nigeria), such legislation aims to do away with people deemed homosexual and transsexual - either through imprisonment, death penalties or harsh social conditions such as ostracism, rape or even murder. At the forefront of such social exclusion and legal policing are ideas perpetuated by many African politcal, religious and traditional leaders who argue that the only way to exist in the continent and to be recognised is by being heterosexual. This is against the rich histories and existence of people with dlverse sexual orientations and practices in Africa. For mainly socio-political reasons, such leaders have considered homosexuality in Africa as “unAfrican’, The language of religion, culture and tradition is often used to speak against sexual and gender diversity in the continent. Within this problematic framework, Africans are and can only be reproductive heterosexuals. We live in a rich, diverse and dynamic continent. There are more than fifty countries in Africa, Nigeria alone has a population of more than 160 million. There Is a wide range of racial, ethnic, cultural ‘and linguistic groups as well as an assortment of Sexual experiences, expressions and identities in this continent. How certain groups of people, who part from ideology share very itl else in common, ‘Would believe that the only way to be in this diverse piace Is singular, suggests blinkered thinking. Many of us who are located in this place called Arica feel strong connection with the fabric of this continent ~ its richness, dynarnism and diversity. This is what we embody. In putting together this volume, Reclaiming Afrikan: queer perspectives on sexual and gender identities, we sought voices from the continent that bring new ideas to our diverse ways of existing Many of the people in this volume see themselves as queer ~a category thal we are yet to recognise fully and understand in this continent. We appropriate both Afrika and queer to affirm sexual and gender identities and positions that are ordinarily shamed and violated by prejudice and hatred. Africa itself is always detached from a queer person. We deliberately use *k’ in Afrikan to emphasise the need to reclaim our existence and being in this continent. As sexual and gender non-conforming or queer persons, we have been alienated in Africa. We have been stripped of our belonging and our connectedness. For these reasons, we have created our own version of Afrika - a space that cuts across the rigid borders and boundaries that have for so many years made us feel disconnected and fractured. Reclaiming Afikan brings us back together as artists, activists, scholars and writers from the different parts of the world we live in, It opens Up a conversation for us to rewrite the ways in which we exist as people who move around this continent and beyond. We break borders, and even beyond these borders ~ we share a sense of kinship - a belonging to a struggle for freedom and social justice. We are, in many ways, queer in the queer sense of the term. "Queer in this book is understood as an inquiry into the present, as a critical space that pushes the boundaries of what is embraced as normative. The queer artists and authors included in Reclaiming Afrikan occupy spaces that speak back to hegemony. For many, this position challenges various norms on gender, sexuality, existence and Prefaceoffers a subversive way of being. Stella Nyanzi fakes this clear in her essay when she asks us to think about the ways in which queer can be queered. If we are to use this term and embrace it, what does it mean for many whose experiences are constantly challenging norms? Can we even challenge the norm of what we ser exists in the continent? ‘While we use the term queer, we are of its polemics, Zethu Matebeni cynically argu that in the South African case queer has become synonymous with another problematic term, LGBT! = an acronym that has hidden the crucial diversit within a conflated group of people. The longer such acronyms continue circulating, the deeper the challenges faced by invisibilised groups such a transgender people will continue. In this acronym, where and how would we situate the photography of Lebo Ntladi and Jabu Pereira whose lens makes visible queer families or transgender existence? If we do not recognise our individual differences, trans people will remain marginalised and “on their own” even within the LGBT Kheswa argues. we consider the possibilities of existence of gender non-conformity in this continent? What would that look like and how would we understand it now? ‘These are the questions that Unoma Azuah answers when she resurre and celebrates the late 20th century Nigerian male musician and cross-dresser, Area Scatter, T not enough images of gander transgressive African This lack of imagery restricts our own thinking and We deliberately use “k” in Afrikan to emphasise the need to reclaim our existence in thi continent. As queer persons, we have been alienated in Africa. We have been stripped of our belonging and our connectedness. For these reasons, we have created our own version of Afrika. language of what we see as gender non-conformity, Often what is permissible within and beyond gender structures does not fit neatly into the Anglophone terminologies we use to describe sexuality and gendex. The resuit is a kind of negotiation with what Jacqui Marx considers an “in/vsibilty". That you can be both seen and unseen in private and public spaces respectively is central to the queer person, How do we want to be seen and what do we want people to see? This is a subjective and yet political question that Kylie Thomas raises in relation to some of the photography in this book ‘Queer persons in this text force you to er with the way in which we look, To whom doe gaze belong? Is it for the viewer or the viewed? Repositioning the queer body as both the viewer and the viewed is an important stance that al the way we see, This kind of viewing forces you into an uncomfortable space of seeing yourself the viewer — thus challenging the ways in which you see. Perhaps the place where this comes alive most powerfully is in the pie both Neo Musangi and a response from Mphati Mutioane and Christopher uma. In “in Time and Space” Musangi positions a conversation within the body, with spaces of belonging and with what boundaries and borders permit and restrict. Mutloane and Ouma’s roflection n the @ by Musangi in a public space in Nairobi brings us to questions on time: boundedness and notions of “events”. Big me have taken place recently in the continent and these are sometimes diffoult to understand. The widaty-c ing out of Kenyan- Ugandan writer Binyavanga Wainaina has stood in stark contrast to the unconsented outing of lesbian, gay and transgender people in Uganda by a tabloid newspaper. This book is a collaborative curatorial project in putting all the voices together we have carefuly nsidered space and place. Some of us here exist in academic spaces. Others engage with wider publics as activsts and as artists. We are part of families, communities and societies that alow our beings and who are sometimes troubled by our nce. At times our locations and positionaitias Other times we are troubled by ou sense of being. This is what we are erupting, The artwork, which is part of this 600k, is from the exhibition Catically Queer, curated by Jabu ownPereira. The tile of the exhibition is drawn from Judith Butlers 1993 essay “Critically Queer’, in. which Butler argues that "[Queer] will have to remain that which i, in the present, never fully owned!” (19). The idea that galleries and exhibitions can display visual narratives of a non-normative nature, is in itself a subversive curatorial approach. This exhibition is, not so much about displaying artworks, but rather it becomes a convergence of discomforts pertaining to the white cube, which originates within colonial history and criminalised laws on sexuality, which too originate within a colonial legal framework Hence, Critically Queer reclaims Afrika and a full embodiment of sex, sexuality, erotics, utopia and the continued struggle against oppression. Jack Halberstam in this book argues for queer work and scholarship that speaks outside the predominant white American or European discourse. Halberstam, following others, calls for queers of colour to claim space, both in Africa and globally. In South Africa specificaly, Halberstam argues that through projects such as the Critically ‘Queer exhibition “a deep archive of queer visual culture in Africa today” about Black queemess has emerged, From the different corners of Africa, artists have come together to reimagine the worid they (desire to} lve in. Nigeria's Tyna Adebowale offers her complex dual identities. Can Nigera be comfortable seeing Tyna as both feminine and masculine, male and female? Would there be a time in Kenya when people see Neo Musangis body as a reflection of the hybridity that underlies the Kenyan existence? How are we to make sense of Dino Bopape’s video installations fight switch and state of emergency? Bopape entities these videos specifically to resurface the issues of being seen and the state in which queer Persons find themselves. We live in an “urgent ‘moment ~ the responses to the events that happen to queer persons require a certain urgency. Selogadi Mampane opens the exhibition Critically Queer with Chromotherapy, aperformance following a young, queer artist who undergoes the Process of constructing their identity. Mampane ‘asks us to be face to face with the violence that is perpetrated on the Black African female body, Giving reference to histories of exoticisation and hypersexualising of the Black wornan. What does it mean for Black African queer persons to claim their own identity? This is similar to what Kelobogile (Lebo) Ntiadi frames in photography on transgender and androgynous persons. Can we find a space in this world for queer persons to bridge the distances between their bodies and the societies they live in? Miumbe Haimbe's graphic novel, The evolutionist, set in the near future takes us to the space of the imaginary, a future whose sexuality, attraction and bodily desire go beyond same-sex attraction. Haimibe’s protagonist in the novel posits her object of desire as a robot amidst futuristic Black female superheroes. Hers is a project that offers futuristic visions that are full of ife and hope. This makes us wonder and question - is Africa ready? Can we imagine a world where consenting sexuality is not heavily policed? What futures are available to us as Africans? Various other people and organisations have been resourceful in putting this collaborative curatorial project together. The Iranti-org team in Johannesburg has mobilised, fund-raised and organised different aspects of this project. We acknowledge Meghna Singh's assistance in putting the exhibition together at the Centre for African Studies Gallery. Hivos offered a small grant to put this book together and we thank them for giving us freedom to do exactly what we want Colleen Higgs at Mogjaj Books embraced this book wholeheartedly and has been wiling to accommodate the ideas that we envisioned. She has been an ideal publisher for this kind of book. We also thank Karen Jennings as well as the peer reviewers who read the text with open minds. This entie project wouid not have been possible without the full support and funding from Huma {Institute for Humanities in Attica) at the University of Cape Town through the Vice Chancellor's Strategic Fund. We also want to acknowledge colleagues: at Huma: Deborah Posel, lana van Wyk, Rifgah Kahn, Heather Maytham, Shamil Jeppie and the doctoral fellows, for their support and assistance in collaborating in the entire project. Zethu Matebeni & Jabu Pereira REFERENCE Buller, Judith, “Crcaly Queer." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1 (1998): 17-82. Print. Pretace Qcollage of different environments in the city, made from photographs to create a collage. The alm is to use various visual arts, in this case photography and collage, and start building or creating spaces that liberate gender. Neither male nor female, neither particularly masculine nor feminine, where the body and biology do not exist The only thing that exists is identity, allowing any identity to exist. So the intention is to imply the body and create hybrids, human/mythical/animal traits with urban culture and geometric/technological enhancements. These enhancements wil consistently be in a gold-like or metallic colour, The gold places emphasis on the reclaiming of wealth, minerals and land and identity for black people. The mythical/animal hybrid speaks of an earlier, child ike spirit, where anything is possible, ‘These works call for optimistic, creative and assertive ways inwhich to eliminategender pronouns and gender normativity, It calls for unique ways of celebrating indifference and creating cultures and traditions that do not confine or repress but instead cuttivate the imaginations of children and child-like spirits to create colourful and positive social change in Africa, Te ea is @ photo essay. A KELEBOGILE NTLADI Thebeautifulonesarehere, 2014 > Kelebogile NtladiKelebogile NtladiINTRODUCTION mie the fantasies, aspirations and trajectories of quoer politics grind sadly and slowiy to a halt in the US and Europe, stalled by the mediocre and complacent poitics of marriage and the neo-liberal desire for inclusion, the stakes in queer politics and queer aesthetics hecome critically important in other sites, for other groups with wilder and more ambitious political goals, And so, we might look, for example, to South Arica and to a human rights queer visual media collective housed in Johannesburg called Iranti- rg for a glimmer of what might stil be critical and meaningtully resistant about queerness now. And what is critical about queerness now for a Black visual media collective in Johannesburg should in no way be understood simply as a version of whet was meant by queerness in the US or Europe in earlier moments. The criticality of queerness in the context of Black South AVrica, indeed, depends absolutely upon its refutation of a temporality that places Euro-American sexual politics in the center of modemity; and it locates queerness, here and now, as simultaneously @ postcolonial critique of normative historiographies of queer worlds and @ futuristic summons for a new world-making endeavour that joins queer of colour ertique in the US to critical queerness in South Africa. Wf we wanted to find links between queer material on radical poltics in the US and queer discourse esewhere, we would do well to start with ‘material on race and sexuality under the heading of “queer of colour critique.” It's this strand of queer theory, a strand authored by theorists ke Roderick Ferguson, Chandan Reddy, José E. Mufioz, Martin Manalansan and Fatima El Tayeb that speaks most learly to non-US-centric work and to the alternate time frames and different poitical trajectories that characterise much of the queer impatus outside of @ Euro-American context. For example, the work of Fatima El Tayeb creates one potential bridge between the concerns of queers of colour in the US and Europe and political aspirations among ot! global queer groups. EiTayeb's work is important because it ‘addresses the racism that lies at the very heart of US and European understandings of the nation. In her outstanding book, European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (2011), Tayeb explains how and why European queers of colour have articulated @ potent and durable critique of European racism. While white Europeans persist in believing that such traditions of racism were eracicated by benevolent and humanitarian anti genocidal politics in the wake of the Holocaust, El-Tayeb shows exactly how white supremacy lives on in anti-immigrant policies in contemporary Europe and especially in Germany. Reaching back to the late 19th century for her evidence, ElTayab addresses the historical conditions that have produced Black Europeans, and specifically Black Germans as a seeming impossibility within modern Europe. The production of the German state as white has a history that, @s in other European nations, overlapped with imperial ambitions, colonial expansion and 18th century theories of race and difference. As El-Tayeb argues convincingly in an article on *Colorialism and Citizenship in Modern Germany", historians have tended to see Anti Somitism as the only form that racism has taken in Germany and the role of racism directed at other ethnic minorities has been downplayed. Accordingly, the long history of racialst thinking in Germany that targeted Black Africans and others as primitive and inferior gives way to histories of the transformation of 19th century Anti-Semitism into genocidal 20th century versions. But El-Tayeb demonstrates the importance of thinking Anti- Semitism and other forms of German anti-Black racism together and cites examples from German lonial history of the deployment of genocidal logics of extermination and elimination used Black Atricans before they became the centerpi of mid-twentieth century Anti-Semitic policies. German colonialsts also advocated against racial mixing on the grounds that the “superior” white races would be polluted and would decline inpower and purity if they intermarried with “inferior” races. The absence of histories such as the one ElTayeb traces of the 1905 ban on interracial marriages in German Southwest Africa obscures the discursive architecture that still constructs contemporary German citizenship es white and produces Blackness as a primary marker of the foreign and inassimilabie. Some of the most powerful sections of European Others: Queering Ethnicity are devoted to accounts of queer of colour activist groups and the'r organised opposition, activist anc! aesthetic, 10 neo-nationalist assaults on immigrant populations. In her meditations on groups like Kanak Attak in Bern and Strange Fruit in Amsterdam, EiTayeb takes the critique of European neo-racisms to a new level and she shapes a coherent set of poitical aims and Practices out of what are often cast as disparate, Gisorganised and wholly separate groups. In these Split Halves, 2012 & Lebo Ntladi Getaied and theoretical accounts of the work of queer of colour activist groups, Ei-Tayeb opens up fan archive through which to think transtocelly about similar groups around the globe - groups like the Sylvia Rivera Transgender Legal Project in NYC, but also Iranti in Johannesburg. These groups share many features and can be read together as part of a global effort to critique state-authored racism from a wide range of sudject positions which, in thelr resistance to discrete identiications, can productively be labelled “queer of colour’ We might aiso use El-Tayeb’s theoretical architecture to frame the continuing legacies of apartheidincontemporary South Africa or continuing Introduction3 3 2 2 S 3 gia Many critics in the art world are content to learn about one or two South African Black artists, few people outside of South Africa know much about entire communities of Black queer artists from the African continent. European curators ignore the deep archive of queer visual culture in Africa today. brutal legacies of colonialism in contemporary Africa in general. By showing how and where queer of colour activist groups are able to poke holes in neo-liberal fantasies of democratic freedom and equality, El-Tayeb makes queer of colour activism completely central to contemporary radical anti- rationalist and anti-neo-colonial projects. And so we can tum to the exhibit labeled Critically Queer and hosted by Huma (the Institute for Humanities in A\tica) and the University of Cape Town to think about the queer critique of racism as it plays out in Black queer art and visual media collectives in South Africa and other parts of Africa, ‘While many criticsin the art world are content to learn about one or two South African Black artists at a time, few people outside of South Africa know much about entire communities of Black queer artists from the Attican continent. The work that makes it out of ‘Africa and into European art shows is often the tip of the iceberg and allows curators to ignore the deep archive of queer visual culture in Attica today. Citicaly Queer challenges stereotypes of African gays and lesbians and makes visible the wide aray Of art and visual culture currently being produced in South Africa by Black gays, lesbians and trans people. Photograntis by Keleboaile Ntlaci under the title Split Halves and the photo essay thabeautitulonesareh for example, capture the fragmentations of self that result from the violent history of South Africa, a history that plays itseff out through and across Black ‘ueer bodies in ways that are exceedingly hard to Capture in anything Ike conventional portraiture. These images in Spit Halves remind the viewer of the damage done, and being done, to Black bodies — sometimes by white brutalty sometimes by other Black bodies—on a dally basis. The body in Ntladi’s striking images fails into shadow more offen than not and is cut through by architectures, binds, the shutter itself, Ntaci,incoed, constructs Blackness as literally a visage moving in and out of focus, neither seeking clarity nor resigned to the blurred lines of amorphous being. Ntladi's images liken the experionce of Black transgender embodiment to an inability to capture identity within the frame of the visual andithey simultaneously betray a deep distrust of the mechanics of visual culture. Starting work by the queer Zambian artist Miumbe Haimbe turns away from the lingering wounds of the past and imagines the coming violence of the future. In a stunning graphic novel titled The Revolutionist, Haimbe tells the story of @ near future society in which women are being replaced by robots. An underground resistance group named Army for the Restoration of Womanhood sends someone to infiltrate the corporation and destroy the robots... But along the way, the infltrator falls for the robot and chaos ensues! It is an awesome story and Haimbe tells it using cool digital graphios. Her futuristic Black feminist superheroes are flawed and powertul, sexy and serious and the whole book oozes charisma and tems with utopian and dystopian potential. This futuristic vision reminds us of how thoroughly ‘thepast and the fulureare being remade by and within activist groups of colour on the African continent Taking aim simultaneously at the legacies of racism that continue to thwart poltical progress and the contemporary manifestations of homophobia that make day to day life precarious for queers of colour, Critically Queer as a show points the way to radically new articulations of sexuaity, race and postcolonial political futures. And Iranti, the visual activist group out of which this show and many more activist projects emerged, offers a brillant example of the radical queer of colour activism that ETayeb situates at the very heart of post-nationaiist queer community. Jack Halberstam REFERENCES EI Tayeb, Fatima. European Others. Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe. University of Minnesota Press, 2011, Print IntroductionMILUMBE HAIMBE "he evolutionist’ is sot in the near future that Is dominated by a ‘corporation. Social conformity in the interest of the coflectve is subliminally reinforced through symbolism and iconology, while the economy is purely corporate-driven. Exploitation of human by human thrives and the insatiable appetite for sex robots threatens to tip the already delicate social balance. But the turing point arrives when news spreads that the corporation is developing a prototype robot that is so Sophisticated that itis capable of replacing women, This gives rise to the resistance. Caling itself the “Army for th Restoration of Womanhood", its tactics include espionage and information disserinat ‘Ananiya was only 13 yoars old when she joined the resistance. Now at 17 she has recently been appointed as an agent in the Covert Operations Division. In the ensuing standoff where the corporation increasingly maintains control with an ironclad fist, itis not long before the resistance gaivenizes into @ fulkblown revolution. As the masses are thrust into a state of emergency have to contend with @ cold war whose underbelly Cheracterised by curfews, police raids, censorship is often dark and ugly, but she must also survive and propaganda, Ananiya emerges as the most the perils and growing pains of being a teenager, as Unikely hero for the revolution. Butnot only does she well as human, Wil the revolution overcome?a RESURRECTING AND CELEBRATING AREA SCATTER, A CROSS-DRESSER WHO TRANSGRESSED GENDER NORMS IN EASTERN NIGERIA his essay examines the role of patriarchy I in Nigerie’s societal opposition to homosexuality; the challenge to that opposition by the late Area Scatter, a renowned late 20th century Nigerian male musician and cross-dresser; and Scatter’s personification of ideas stemming from the framework of Queer Theory. For centuries, the Nigerian political, religious, and social order has been dictated by a patriarchal system that puts in place fixed gender roles and attitudes opposing homosexuality. Along with foreign religions and colonialism, patriarchy is the cause to which many historians attribute homophobia in African countries. Professor Mark Epprecht of Queens University in Canada, for example, notes that homophobic laws entrenched in colonised countries were inherited from the colonial era and are, in large part, responsible for hostility toward homosexuality in Nigeria. This fact is evident when looking at the pre-colo1 era of the Igbo community in southeastern Nigeria. During that period of Igbo history, sex and gender were fluid, and even though there were societies in Nigeria that were not open to transgendered persons, there were/are instances where men cross-dress, as in the Gelede Yoruba “identity Series #4, 2014 ‘Tyna Adebowale Resurrecting na by Unoma Azuah festival where men cross-dress to honour motherhood as Margaret Drewal documents. Further, sociologist Chimaroke O. Izugbara argues that norms around sexuality in Nigeria “are socially produced and fed by oppressive patriarchal subjectivities and ideologies that try to instill a sense of what is normal, sexually- speaking, for us all” (12). Homosexuality is one of the strongest challenges to patriarchy, and therefore “is framed as an unruly force which threatens humanity at large and has to be kept perfectly under control, by violence, if necessary” (12). While different strategies are used to control homosexuality, all of them including religious, and governmental, reinforce patriarchal power. The cross-dressing musical performer, Area Scatter was defiant of patriarchal tradition. Itis believed that in the year 1970 Scatter retreated to a vast and secluded wooded area for seven months and seven days after which he re-emerged transformed. Some of the speculations attached to his transformation point to the spiritual implication of his, seclusion which says that during the period he acquired spiritual powers to enhance his musical talent. Some others suggest that he needed the seclusion to fortify himself as a man who needed to embrace his femininity. In Beats of the Heart (1985), where Scatter is featured alongside important but lesser-known international musicians, researchers give the following account: Area ScatterWe headed off into the forests to the hut of an infamous “witch doctor’, or shaman called Area Scatter. His home was filed with bones and skulls and paintings of the power of good and evi. A muscular, humorous man, he explained how, afer living through the civ war, he had gone into the walderne months and seven days transformed into @ woman. The day we visi him he headed off, dressed in white smo polka-dot skirt and a shamanist bone necklace, idence of his Royal Highness... to play al king and queen. Area Scatter was a highly accomplished performer on his thumb piano which was decorated with distinctive skull and crossbones. When the king and his wife ceremonially entered and seated them their thrones, Area Scatter bowed deeply and started t rich voic tot! for the Area Scatter’s performance, seen on a YouTube video, at the palace of a local chief creates queer moments, undoing the culturally sanctioned gender norm as the men in the audience react to him with fascination and, perhaps, desire. ‘The response to his exhibition of trans- status and transgender symbolises and magnifies the hypocrisy and blurred boundaries of sexuality in the larger society. The chief for whom Area Scatter performed was receptive to and seemingly enamored with the performance of the cross-dresser. However, the chief represents the society’s patriarchal power structure that enacts laws forbidding, homosexuality and punishing it with jail and death sentences. Sections 214 and 217 of the Nigeria Criminal Code states that adults who engage in consensual same sex activities will be penalised with a jail sentence of up to 14 years. Section 217 also criminalises an even broader category of “gtoss indecency” between males, punishing the offender with up to three years in prison. This is because homosexual men in Nigeria more publicly transgress gender norms, especially with the belief that men should be dominant over submissive women, By rejecting the privilege enjoyed by heterosexual men, homosexual men represent a visible threat to Flipped Side Series, 2014 & Tyna Adebowale patriarchal values and the sexual ideologies they support. The Sharia Penal Code stipulates the severest of punishment for same-sex relations =a maximum penalty of death by stoning. Further, the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act of 2014 has introduced a law that sentences any convicted homosextal who engages in same sex marriage or civil union to a 14 year jail term. These policies reflect the profuse homophobia and homohatred of the Nigerian government, Within the performance space of Area Scatter and his audience, the cross-dressing, entertainer shatters the generally accepted interpretations of gender and sexuality in a community fixated on gender roles and draconian laws created to suppress so- called “deviant” behaviours of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community in Nigeria. He presented himself as a woman not just on stage but in life. This is demonstrated when he is seen walking to a local Chief's palace in his community to perform, His femininity was not merely his garb or costume. He walked the streets of his ‘community as a woman. In other words, his cross dressing is not regalia he dons for his performance. Instead, he owns and embodies a gender that is different from his biological make-up, Hence, he lived his life unconfined to stringent spaces relegated by imposing order, validating the belief that femininit and masculinity are not always behaviours that come from biology. In fact, one can conclude that Karen Melanson aptly captures Resurre G6 Area Scatter’s performance at the palace of a local chief creates queer moments, undoing the culturally sanctioned gender norm as the men in the audience react to him with fascination and, perhaps, desire. Area Scatter's intent when she says that “the conscious act of cross dressing ... is a thought out and active attempt to subvert gender identity” (n. pag.). Additionally, Queer ‘Theorists like Bertens, and Hans have said that, “Cross-dressing undermines the claim to the naturalness of standard heterosexual identities. Therefore cross-dressing acts as a hefty weapon in the battle against the fixed categorization of the phallocentric center” (230). In this context, one can say that Area Scatter takes the role of a homosexual because he utilises homosexuality to defy fixed gender constructs and expectations. Hence, he dismantles gender boundaries. From a larger perspective, his performance calls to mind the act of cross-dressing in medieval plays. This period may seem dated, but it evokes issues of queer moments that are relevant to modern times. These stage actors in their customs bear transgender and trans-status demonstrations that move beyond contravening proscribed sexual and social behaviours to introducing multiple interpretations of desire (Sponsler & Clark 319. 344). The parallel between Area Scatter’s stage and that of the actors of the late Middle Ages stirs up issues of performance and its social framework. There seems to be a clear message that performance is a mode of conveying intense social and erotic desires. Whatever meaning one reads into Area Scatter’s performance, there is a suggestion of some sort, albeit subtle, of an erotic energy from his male audience. Though both Area Scatter and medieval actors use the stage and performance as sites of desire, a point of departure comes between the two, particularly when it is ting and Celebrating Area ScatterArea Scatter as a cross dresser defies the notion of a fixed gender and celebrates the fluidity of gender. He transgresses the social, gender and sexual norms of his community and, therefore, should be celebrated for his bravery. implied that cross-dressing could be tamed by confining it to spaces of what is called “licensed misrule saturnalia” to use Casey Charles' term (122). Additionally, Jean Howard suggests that crossdressing transgresses status hierarchies and provides a conduit for questioning and in some cases attempts to re-arrange the construction of class as well as gender boundaries (418-440) Ina society like Nigeria where the belief is that men should be dominant over submissive women, homosexual men more publicly transgress gender norms. Yet, Area Scatter as a cross-dresser defies the notion of a fixed gender and celebrates the fluidity of gender. He rather transgresses the social, gender and sexual norms of his community and, therefore, should be celebrated for his bravery. Though he is late, his legacy foreshadows a society where there is no discrimination against sexual orientation He must have imagined a society where gender is fluid and destabilised, a society where gender becomes irrelevant to the individual's perception and demonstration of self (Melanson). Area Scatter is a Queer theorist of his time because he aligns himself with Judith Butler’s assertion that sex is biological while gender is a cultural construction (284). 4 Shy, 2012 Tyna Adebowale REFERENCES Bertens, Johannes Witlem and lertens Hans, The Basics: Literary Theory. New York: Routledge Publishors, 2004. Print Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the ‘Subversion of identity. New York: Routiedge Classic, 2006. Print Charles, Casey: “Gender Trouble in Twelfth Night” Theatre Journal. 49.2 (1997}: 121-141. Print. Clark, L.A. and Claire M, Sponster “Queer Play: The (Cultural Work of Cross-dressing in Medieval Drama" New Literary History. 28.2 (1997): 319-44. Print. Drewel. Margaret Thompson. “Art andi Yoruba Shango Devotees." Africa At. 20. Print Epprecht, Marc. Heterosenuatity Atica? The History of an idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS, Ohio: Orio University Press, 2008. Print tezugbara, Chimaroke O, “Patriarchal kdeology and Discourses of Soxuality in Nigeria.” Understanding Human Sexuaity Seminar Series 2. Lagos, Nigeria: Arica Regional Sexuality Resources Center, 2004. Print Howard, Jean E. 'Crossdressing, The Theatre, ‘and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England.” ‘Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 418-440. Print Melanson, Karen. "Queer Theory: Destabilizing Gender Femthoory. Tulane University. 2013. Web. ‘Area Scatter video clip httns://ww,youtuba.com/ Resurrecting and Celebrating Area Scatter / a a rr NENEGOTIATING HOMOSEXUAL IN/VISIBILITY Seshee Bopape presents a looped projection in which two light switches are turned on and off. The viewer experiences seeing and not seeing, which symbolizes a dimension of homosexual existence: in/ visibility. As sexuality is not immediately obvious in the way that gender and race is (its perceptibility is more contingent on our performance of it), itis interesting to consider the circumstances in which homosexual in/ visibility is negotiated. In this essay, this consideration is grounded in a discussion of cross-dressing and drag performances in a small city in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. ‘This essay is based on stories about cross- dressing and drag performances that were obtained from personal interviews. Although this essay focuses on the politics of homosexual in/visibility in post-apartheid South Africa, it is based on doctoral research that investigates the politics of homosexual in/visibility over a period of sixty years, beginning in the 1950s and the inception of apartheid policy, through the socio-political changes in the 1990s, to the twenty-first century post-apartheid context. An excerpt from a conversation with an elderly homosexual man about cross-dressing during apartheid is included in this essay because it allows for a useful observation of shifts in I: the exhibition Critically Queer, Dineo